” The last US special forces have been withdrawn from Yemen without exciting much notice from the US press. Max Boot tweets: “All US SOF evacuating Yemen. Huge win for AQAP, huge defeat for US. How many foreign policy disasters can we handle?” Reuters reports, “the United States has evacuated its remaining personnel, including about 100 special operations forces, from Yemen because of the deteriorating security situation there, U.S. officials said on Saturday.” This means that the last vestiges of what the Obama administration only recently touted as their model counter-insurgency operation are gone. The collapse has flown largely under the media radar.

Last week Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post reported that $500 million dollars in American supplied weapons are now in the hands of “Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda”. The Islamist blitzkrieg is living off huge quantities of captured US materiel.

BS News reported that an “Obama administration’s senior counterterrorism official acknowledged Thursday that the U.S. intelligence community was surprised by the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Yemen.” Nobody saw it coming, but the very same people assure the public they know what is to come. They’re in intelligence, right?

Nick Rasmussen, who directs the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Yemen’s American-funded army failed to oppose advancing Houthi rebels in the same way the U.S.-supported Iraqi military refused to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants last year.

What happened in Iraq with the onslaught of ISIS “happened in Yemen” on “a somewhat smaller scale,” he said. “As the Houthi advances toward Sanaa took place… they weren’t opposed in many places…. The situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected.” “

Read more on the latest , of many , foreign policy failures of the Obama administration from Richard Fernandez

” Bibi’s win is another in a long string of Middle East failures by President Obama and will add to the belief by both our friends and our enemies in the region that the costs of being Obama’s friend can outweigh the costs of his enmity. Egypt’s President Mubarak thought he was Obama’s friend; so did his successor President Morsi. The Syrian moderate rebels expected their friend in the White House to back them. The Zionist Union thought that promising to work more closely with Obama was the ticket to an electoral win in Israel. Meanwhile, as Bibi can now testify, those who defy this White House don’t seem to pay much of a price: just ask Syria’s Assad or, for that matter, his patrons in Iran. ISIS has more visibility and power in the Middle East than al-Qaeda ever did, while the Sunni Arab tribes of Iraq who saved America’s bacon during the surge and who counted on American influence to protect their interests in postwar Iraq are being overrun by Shi’a militias.”

While we would argue that for the past six years the present administration has done everything in it’s power to destroy the above referenced US-Israeli relationship and that the “two state solution” is a non-starter , we’ll set that aside and let the esteemed Walter Russell Mead continue…

” The battle of wills between Beijing and Washington over a China-sponsored development bank for Asia is turning into a rout, and the Obama administration has found itself isolated and embarrassed as its top allies lined up this week to join the proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

In what one analyst dubbed a “diplomatic disaster” for the U.S., Britain became the first major European ally to sign on as a founding member of the Shanghai-based investment bank, joined quickly by France, Germany and Italy, which dismissed public and private warnings from the U.S. about the bank’s potential impact on global lending standards and the competition it could provide to existing institutions such as the U.S.-dominated World Bank.

Luxembourg, a major global financial center, revealed this week that it would sign up. China is also wooing Australia and South Korea, two of America’s closest Asian allies, to join before the March 31 deadline. A South Korean wire service reported Wednesday that Seoul was “seriously considering” the offer.

With 32 countries on board and more expected in the coming days, Chinese state media have begun to gloat about the failure of the Obama administration to rally even its closest allies and trading partners to shun the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. They noted that U.S. officials have long lectured China, now the world’s second-largest economy, to take a more active “stakeholder” role in global economic affairs, but then tried to undermine the investment bank almost from the time Chinese President Xi Jinping floated the idea of an Asian development fund during a trip to Indonesia in October 2013.”

” Islamic State militants are planning a takeover of Libya as a “gateway” to wage war across the whole of southern Europe, letters written by the group’s supporters have revealed.

The jihadists hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq, who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants on people trafficking vessels, according to plans seen by Quilliam, the British anti-extremist group.

The fighters would then run amok in southern European cities and also try to attack maritime shipping.

The document is written by an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) propagandist who is believed to be an important online recruiter for the terror in Libya, where security has collapsed in the wake of the revolution that unseated Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.”

Thanks Hillary and Barack . That “smart diplomacy” is sure working out well , for the Jihadis anyway , for the West not so much . Read more at The Telegraph.

” Just how long did the White House sit on intelligence on where ISIS held American hostages? Allahpundit asked that question yesterday, when the difference in sources put it between four and seven weeks. The mother of James Foley tells the Daily Beast’s Jamie Dettmer and Shane Harris that it may have been closer to four months:

But Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, who was the first American to be shown murdered on camera, also raised questions about the timing of the rescue effort, telling The Daily Beast that French officials had developed information about the hostages’ location as early as March, but that the U.S. government didn’t act on it.

“ That was part of our frustration,” she said. “The State Department said they were connecting with the French and everybody at the highest levels.” And yet, there was no movement on the U.S. side. “Very specific information was available as early as mid-March. And that’s what’s been so tough for us as families, because apparently they were held in the same place all those months,” Foley said.”

” An Afghan soldier killed a United States Army major general and wounded a German brigadier general and at least 14 other foreign and Afghan military service members on Tuesday at a military training academy on the outskirts of Kabul, officials of the American-led coalition said Tuesday. The major general appeared to be the highest-ranking member of the American military to die in hostilities overseas since the Vietnam War.

The German military confirmed that one of its brigadier generals serving in Afghanistan was among 15 coalition-led troops wounded in the shooting, described as “presumably an internal attack.” The general was being treated for his injuries, which were not life-threatening, the Germans said in a statement.

Other details of the shooting were sketchy, and the coalition, in an official statement, would only confirm that one of its service members had been killed in what it described as “an incident” at the Marshall Fahim National Defense University in Kabul. The coalition declined to specify any further details, saying it was still working to notify the family of the deceased.”

Another first for the Obama administration …

” Until Tuesday, no officer in the American military of major general rank or higher had been reported killed by hostile action abroad since the Vietnam War. According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial database, Maj. Gen. John Albert B. Dillard Jr. was killed on May 12, 1970 when his helicopter was shot down. Rear Adm. Rembrandt Cecil Robinson, the Navy’s equivalent of a major general, was killed on May 8, 1972, when his helicopter crashed.”

” Since late 2013, a number of foreign nationals have been shot dead in Libya. The Foreign Office said further attacks were “likely”. The updated travel advice comes amid reports of at least 30 deaths in clashes between Libyan government forces and Islamist militants in the city of Benghazi.

There were also reports of intense fighting near Tripoli airport. More than 20 people are said to have been killed. On Saturday, the US evacuated its embassy in Tripoli, citing a “real risk” because of the fighting.”

” With the ongoing collapse of Iraq, the endgame for the worst foreign policy in American history has begun.

It is no less than astonishing to glance over the foreign policy errors made by the Obama administration since 2009.

● The deliberate alienation of the UK. Thanks to direct and malicious efforts made by President Obama personally (the Churchill bust, Region 1 DVDs), the oldest and most fruitful alliance of the modern age entered into its frostiest period since the Civil War… in the midst of a civilizational conflict in which the Anglosphere comprised the sole serious opposition.

● The deliberate undermining of Israel. Again, a loyal and steady ally was cut off for no rational reason. In this case, a country to which the U.S., as the chief representative of the West, owes an unquestionable moral debt. I guess O was listening to all those Jeremiah Wright sermons after all.

● The dismissal of India. Though generally overlooked, this marks a crucial blow against a future alliance promising profound benefits. The Bush administration put particular effort into widening relations with Asia’s largest democracy. Obama allowed this to collapse, evidently as an insult directed at George W. Bush.

● The abandonment of Africa. Again, Bush did yeoman’s work in reviving American involvement in Africa, an effort that generated praise even from his political enemies. As with India, our first African-heritage president dropped this without even a second glance.”

” What can be done? Very little, at this point. To consider otherwise is to assume that this crew of losers — Obama, Hagel, Rice, Power, and a cast of thousands — can somehow undo what they set in motion through their own stupidity and self-delusion in the first place. (This is to assume that you can attract Obama’s attention without calling airstrikes against every golf course on the planet). With the coming collapse of Iraq, the avalanche is in motion and cannot be stopped. The best strategy is to ride it out and prepare to pick up the pieces.”

Read the whole thing and determine to help get some grown-ups elected in 2016

” Security is being beefed up at the U.S. embassy in the capital of Iraq and some staff members are being temporarily moved to other parts of Iraq and to Jordan, following a string of explosions in the area that have killed at least 15 and wounded more than 30.

A State Department spokeswoman says in a statement that a “substantial majority” of U.S. embassy staff will remain even as parts of the country experience instability and violence.

One car bomb went off in the city center, killing 10 and wounding 21. After nightfall, another explosion hit the area, killing two and wounding five. The third went off near a falafel shop in the city’s sprawling Sadr City district, killing three and wounding seven.”

The arming of the terrorists is now complete . Whatever armament Obama failed to provide for the terrs in Libya and Syria is now in their hands in Iraq . Heck of a job Barack .

It’s 1973 all over again and think how many decades it took the US to recover from that failure of the political class in abandoning the priceless efforts of 58,220 brave American servicemen and women . Obama can now add 3,527 bodies to his list of “Smart Diplomacy” accomplishments.

Now that’s “leadership” . The question is to who’s benefit … Ask yourselves , could the Jihadis have elected a better president to suit their goals ? Who’s interests do the Obama administration really represent ? Is there any doubt that the terrorists are stronger and in better shape now than they were six years ago ?

Here is a recent map of the mid east and north Africa that shows exactly how much the Jihadi’s have gained since our illustrious “leader” took office . All of the highlighted countries have now either experienced major growth in terrorist activity , become safe havens for terrorist training camps or have become outright fiefdoms on the road to a “Global Caliphate” . So after six years of “leadership” by the enlightened one , ask yourself , who is really better off … the free world , or the Islamists ?

The UN said in its statement that Boko Haram—whose name loosely translates to “Western education is a sin”—has “maintained a relationship with the Organization of Al-Qaida [sic] in the Islamic Maghreb for training and material support purposes.”

How many of you remember this ?

” Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has been referring to the group as a terrorist organization since last year and arresting members accordingly. But his country’s battles with Islamism have been launched onto the international stage since Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls last month. This has put Nigeria on the map in a way Jonathan would have done best to avoid.

It has also put Nigeria on this particular map of countries with recognized al-Qaeda affiliates.”

” Terrorist attacks worldwide increased by more than 43 percent last year despite the efforts of the U.S. and its allies to destroy or disrupt extremist networks, the State Department acknowledged in a new report Wednesday.

Total attacks around the world grew from more than 6,700 to more than 9,700 last year, killing nearly 18,000 people. Nearly 33,000 people were injured, and nearly 30,000 were kidnapped or taken hostage. The deadliest countries for terrorism were Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

” India has said Russia holds “legitimate interests” in Ukraine, becoming the first major nation appearing to publicly lean towards Moscow at a time it is largely isolated internationally over its military intervention in the Crimean Peninsula.

India’s first official response came on a day Crimean MPs voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, prompting the US to activate some sanctions.

National security adviser Shivshankar Menon has said India wants the confrontation between the West and Moscow over Ukraine resolved peacefully. But he added that it also hoped that the interests of Russia and other stakeholders were taken into account.

“ We hope that whatever internal issues there are within Ukraine are settled peacefully, and the broader issues of reconciling various interests involved, and there are legitimate Russian and other interests involved…. We hope those are discussed, negotiated and that there is a satisfactory resolution to them,” Menon said today.

“ We are not sure how Russia can be seen having legitimate interests in the territory of another country,” Roman Pyrih, the media secretary at the Ukrainian embassy in New Delhi, said. “In our view, and in the view of much of the international community, this is a direct act of aggression and we cannot accept any justification for it.”

” If anything, since concluding their nuclear agreement with the U.S., the new moderate Iranians have only grown more bellicose. Clearly they think, as Hitler did after humiliating Neville Chamberlain at Munich, that their foes are weak, spineless, and anxious to appease them. Like Hitler after Munich, they are stepping up their saber-rattling, as well as their actual moves towards war. One wonders if there is a Winston Churchill on the horizon, ready to face them down at the eleventh hour. There certainly seems to be an inexhaustible supply of Neville Chamberlains.

“ Iranian TV airs simulated bombing of Tel Aviv, US aircraft carrier,” by Ilan Ben Zion for the Times of Israel, February 8 (thanks to Lookmann):

Iranian state TV on Friday ran a documentary featuring a computerized video of Iran’s drones and missiles bombing Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ben Gurion Airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor in a hypothetical retaliation for an Israeli or American strike on the Islamic Republic.

Iranian drones and missiles are also shown carrying out simulated strikes on the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, downing American aircraft and striking American military targets in the Persian Gulf.”

This is the kind of result we can expect from Obama’s “smart diplomacy” … make concessions and encourage the animals . The triumph of the Obama/Kerry Iranian capitulation yields an implacable enemy emboldened to the point where they not only produce videos like this but send their navy to our shores .

We are led by incompetents who’ve learned nothing from history . Winston Churchill said it best :

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”

” A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war.”

” As 2014 begins, President Barack Obama’s approval rating is at its lowest point in his five-year tenure. Imagine where it would be if the establishment press treated him the way it did George W. Bush.

The president’s media apparatchiks are propping up what remains of the president’s popularity with five myths.

1. The economy has become strong, and is getting stronger.

Media reports have been calling recent job gains “robust.” Hardly. 2013′s estimated job growth of almost 2.4 million is still only 60 percent of what was achieved annually on a population-adjusted basis for a full six years during the 1980s. (See chart below.)

It’s bad enough that payroll employment is still 1.3 million below its January 2008 peak. It’s worse that employment in the Household Survey is 2 million shy of where it was in that same month. If we’re lucky and this plodding progress continues, it will have taken almost seven years for that more comprehensive measure of employment to return to where it was before the recession began — and several more years, if ever, before a recovery in employment catches up to eligible adult population growth.”

” The strange thing about the crackup in U.S.-Saudi relations is that it has been on the way for more than two years, like a slow-motion car wreck, but nobody in Riyadh or Washington has done anything decisive to avert it.

What should worry the Obama administration is that Saudi concern about U.S. policy in the Middle East is shared by the four other traditional U.S. allies in the region: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. They argue (mostly privately) thatObama has shredded U.S. influence by dumping President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, backing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, opposing the coup that toppled Morsi, vacillating in its Syria policy, and now embarking on negotiations with Iran — all without consulting close Arab allies. “

” The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The confidential memo reveals that the NSA encourages senior officials in its “customer” departments, such the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their “Rolodexes” so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.

The document notes that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately “tasked” for monitoring by the NSA.

After Merkel’s allegations became public, White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement that said the US “is not monitoring and will not monitor” the German chancellor’s communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring the phone in the past.

The NSA memo obtained by the Guardian suggests that such surveillance was not isolated, as the agency routinely monitors the phone numbers of world leaders – and even asks for the assistance of other US officials to do so.”

” The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government for years. It hacked into the president’s public email account and gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called “Tailored Access Operations” (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets.

That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as “top secret” said: “TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon’s public email account.” “

With friends like US , who needs enemies ? This must be more of that “smart diplomacy” we were promised . Add Mexico to the list with Brazil and Germany of former allies sure to take a much different view of the US than used to be the case .

the Directors of all the major Internet organizations — ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Internet Society, all five of the regional Internet address registries — turned their back on the US government. With striking unanimity, the organizations that actually develop and administer Internet standards and resources initiated a break with 3 decades of U.S. dominance of Internet governance.

” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has scrapped a scheduled state visit to the White House amid Brazilian outrage over news that the U.S. spied on her and a Brazilian oil company.

The cancellation of the Oct. 23 visit is the first public diplomatic fallout prompted by the revelations of National Security Agency spying and represents a serious rift between the two economic powerhouses and trading partners.

Obama has sought repeatedly to allay Brazil’s concerns, meeting privately with Rousseff at an economic summit in St. Petersburg, and dispatching several top members of his administration to speak to the Brazilians. Obama spoke with Rousseff by phone Monday, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said they agreed to postpone the state visit – which would have been the first of Obama’s second term.

Carney said the two presidents believed the visit “should not be overshadowed by a single bilateral issue, no matter how important or challenging the issue may be.”

But the Brazilian government said Tuesday the issue has yet to be resolved to its satisfaction.

“The illegal practice of intercepting communications and data of citizens, businesses and members of the Brazilian government constitute(s) a serious act which threatens national sovereignty and individual rights, and which is incompatible with democratic coexistence between friendly countries,” it said in a statement.”

“Libya has become AQIM’s headquarters,” says the intelligence source, adding that in just the last few weeks three new al Qaeda camps have opened in southern Libya.

The president of Chad, Idriss Déby, complained last week that Libya isn’t doing enough to prevent these fighters from using Libya as a training ground for new recruits, undermining security in the region. The Libyan government has denied the claims, saying there has been no influx of jihadists from Mali.”

Disgruntled militiamen in league with the Muslim Brotherhood last week applied a choke hold on the government by besieging key ministries in an effort to coerce approval of a measure that is likely to collapse of the government of Ali Zeidan, plunging Libya into even greater political turmoil and weakening Libya’s ability to battle jihadists.”

” President Obama’s first journey to Israel as president comes amid earth-shattering change in Middle East, much of it for the worse. The Arab Spring, which once raised hopes of freedom and dignity, has diverged onto the dark path of Islamist authoritarian rule. In Syria, tens of thousands of people have died in a bitter civil war that might have recently seen its first use of chemical weapons. And Iran continues its march toward nuclear weapons capability, heedless of international condemnation. Obama’s effort to seek peace between Palestinians and Israelis is in tatters.

That’s why the White House has been lowering expectations for Obama’s trip to Israel all this week. He will announce no new peace plan, grand design or major foreign policy initiative. His advisers are calling the trip a “listening tour.” That is what you call a state visit when you have little to say.

According to the latest survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, confidence in Obama in Muslim countries dropped from 33% to 24% in his first term. Approval of Obama’s policies declined even further, from 34% to 15%. And support for the United States in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan is lower today than it was in 2008 in the closing year of George W. Bush’s administration. ”